| Collisions of heavy nuclei at high energies are believed to create a new state of matter. The Quark-Gluon Plasma. The particles produced in such collisions can signal whether or not this new state has been produced. This Thesis presents an analysis of these collisions, and the evolution of the number of created particles as the initial conditions are changed; through the collision geometry, the center-of-mass energy and the collision species.; The measured particle production in collisions of different nuclei is found to exhibit some different scaling properties. The number of charged-particles produced in small collision systems (p + p or d + Au) is found to scale with the number of nucleons participating in the collision. In larger systems (Au + Au) a higher yield is manifest.; To conclude the Thesis, a simple model is presented which describes the data at all energies and for all collision species. The model, tuned to the Au + Au charged-particle multiplicities, successfully predicts the results of other collision systems. |
